Her Return to King's Bed

Five years, he told himself. Five long years wondering where the hell she was. If she was dead or injured. If she was laughing at him from some other man’s bed. No. She wasn’t leaving. Not until he was good and ready for her to be gone. And at the moment, he didn’t know just when that might be.

She went pale and her brown eyes shone with too many banked emotions to identify. If he had cared to try. Which he didn’t, he assured himself. Instead, Rico dismissed her and focused his gaze on the other man in the room.

Dominick Coretti was stylish, confident and even now Rico could see the gleam of exhilaration in his eyes. He was already trying to think of a way out. A way to salvage a situation that had turned on him unexpectedly. Well, there was no way out for him—unless he did exactly as Rico wanted.

“I am insulted that you would think me a thief,” Nick began, clearly sticking to his routine of outraged guest. “And I will not stay where I am clearly unwelcome. My family and I will book passage off the island by this evening.”

“Your family will not be allowed to leave until the jewelry you’ve taken has been returned.”

“I beg your pardon—”

“There is no pardon here,” Rico told him flatly. Oh, he had to hand it to the man. He was pulling off the insulted-guest routine so well that if Rico hadn’t been sure of his facts, he might have believed him. Problem was, there was no doubt in Rico’s mind just who the Coretti family really was.

“Once the jewelry is returned,” he said with a knowing smile, “you and your son can leave. My wife will remain with me.”

“Wife?” Nick echoed.

“Wife?” Teresa yelped.

Finally, Rico looked to her again and was pleased to see stunned shock on her beautiful features. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open and color had rushed in to fill her pale, honey-toned cheeks.

“That’s crazy.”

“It’s true.”

“You said nothing to me of marrying this man,” her father accused.

“It wasn’t important,” she argued without even glancing at the other man.

Those three words slapped at Rico and only served to fan the flames of his anger. Not important. Their marriage. Her running out on him. Her family stealing what was his. Not important. Anger was rife inside him and he struggled to keep his tone and his expression from revealing his feelings. “That’s not what you said at the time.”

“How is it I was not told of this marriage?” The accusatory tone in her father’s voice singed the air.

“Papa—”

Rico didn’t believe the other man’s outrage for a second. He knew all about the Corettis. He’d done his research over the last several years. And though the private investigators he’d hired hadn’t been able to locate Teresa, they’d come up with quite a bit of very interesting information. Enough to see the whole damn family locked away, if he wished.

So, no, he didn’t believe Nick’s performance. He knew that thieving had been a way of life for the family for generations. Lying was their stock in trade.

“I’m not playing this game,” he said simply, quietly.

“Game?”

He glanced at the older man, then shifted his gaze back to the woman who haunted him. “As I said, return the jewelry you stole and you and your son can leave the island. Teresa will stay here. With me, until you bring me the gold dagger that was taken from me five years ago.”

“You cannot hold my daughter here against her will,” Nick said, the steel in his voice telling Rico this was a man accustomed to being obeyed.

“It’s that,” Rico said, staring at the other man now, “or I go to Interpol.”

Nick waved that threat away with a negligent, well-manicured hand. “Interpol doesn’t worry me.”

“Once I hand over the information I have gathered on your family over the years, I think you’ll feel differently.”

Dark brown eyes narrowed. “What information?”

“Enough to end you,” Rico promised, ignoring Teresa’s soft gasp.

“Impossible,” Nick blustered, but concern glinted in his eyes. “There has never been evidence found against my family.”

“Until now.” Rico gave him a smile. “Private investigators can go where the police can’t. And if the law should receive this information from an anonymous source...”

Nick Coretti—or Candello, as he was registered here—looked as if he’d been cornered. And he had.

Now the years of hiring the best private investigators in the world and collecting data and evidence were finally paying off—just as he’d known it would one day. Rico had been methodical as only a King could be when faced with an enemy. Add to that heritage the Latin blood that swam in his veins and revenge tasted sweeter than he had even imagined.

“Your sons are not always as careful as their father,” he said, watching suspicion and then a cautious wariness shine in Dominick Coretti’s eyes.

“You’re bluffing.”

Rico smiled slightly and, without taking his gaze from Nick’s, said, “Teresa, tell your father I don’t bluff.”

“He doesn’t, Papa,” she whispered and the sound seemed to echo in the plush suite. “If he says he has evidence, he does.”

A frown crossed Nick’s face then and Rico knew he had the man’s attention.

“What is it you want?”

“I’ve already told you. I want what your family stole from me five years ago.”

Nick shot a look at his daughter. “I think you stole something from me, as well.”

He hadn’t stolen Teresa, Rico thought. He’d let his heart rule his head for the first and last time in his life. And just look where that had gotten him.

“Fine, then,” he said. “Call it an exchange. You return my property and I will return yours.”

He knew he was being insulting and he just didn’t give a royal damn.

“Property?” Teresa hissed the word as her back went poker straight and her shoulders squared as if for battle. She lifted her chin and looked up at Rico. “I’m no one’s property. Least of all yours.”

He inclined his head in a nod. “Don’t bother being offended. I’m not interested in keeping you.”

She reacted as if she’d been slapped.

Rico ignored her. “You can go as soon as I have the Aztec dagger back in my possession.”

Not only had Teresa used him and then vanished, she’d done her disappearing act right after the centuries-old dagger had gone missing from Rico’s collection. He knew, thanks to information his P.I.s had gathered, that Teresa’s brother had stolen it from him. And he wanted that dagger. It was a ceremonial dagger, used in the Aztecs’ religious sacrifices, that Rico’s great-great-however-many-greats-grandfather had found in an archaeological dig more than two hundred years ago. Not only was it ancient and a piece of history—it had been handed down in his father’s family for longer than anyone could remember—and Rico would have it returned.

Once he had that—and his personal revenge on Teresa—he could be done with her and the past.